Somebody at Atari Stopped Listening to the Lawyers!
More than a few times, I have criticized companies that immediately send out cease and desist letters when their intellectual property is being used on the internet without their permission (I'm talking about you, Ford and Nintendo). I have even recommended companies proactively create a public use policy around their IP to help fans understand how they can engage with their favorite brands.
So, it is really nice to be able to highlight an example of a company that gets the opportunity these situations present and the destruction cause by immediately going legal on every unauthorized use of IP. Here is an interview with Atari executive vice president of online and mobile, Tom Kozik. Atari faced the issue of people, who have an affinity for the classic Atari games, creating imitations of their popular games (some not so great) and distributing them on fileshare networks. Rather than following the disturbing trend of sending C&D letters to the fileshare and the individuals distributing the games, Atari decided to engage them and offer legitimate versions of the games to distribute. Tom explains his position perfectly:
Truth be told, why in the world would I ever want to go after my fans? These are people who absolutely love our classic old arcade games...Now, instead of arming up a cadre of lawyers the smart thing to do is say, "Look, you're fans of our games, let us give you the legitimate version of the game,"
...bring those affiliates into the fold by saying, "We'll actually share revenue with you." They've been running that less than optimal, if not [coughs] a little dodgy, version of Asteroids or Missile Command, so why not just run the original one, share in the revenue and still have the same appeal to the fans they want to draw to their site? And we've got the library of all our other great games that we can bring to them as well.
- Re-asserted control of brand
- Deepen brand engagement with fans
- Raise likelihood fans will promote brand to their friends and followers
- Co-opted an underground channel for piracy into a potential revenue channel
- Risk losing some revenue from people still downloading the games for free (but would they have paid for them anyway?)
- I am at a loss for any others
